Cornyn wants answers from Justice on gun questions

Sen. John Cornyn sent a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder pressing for specifics on the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) plan for “smart gun technology” and its potential impact on gun owners.

Holder testified before a House subcommittee in early April and told lawmakers the Justice Department is examining the development of devices that would make a gun usable only by its owner. Firearms safety experts have said such devices could prevent unauthorized use or accidental discharge of guns, particularly by children, and limit the incentive for stealing weapons.

Holder said he and Vice President Biden had spoken with technical experts “about how guns can be made more safe by making them either through fingerprint identification, the gun talks to a bracelet or something that you might wear, how guns can be used only by the person who is lawfully in possession of the weapon.”

In his April 15 letter to Holder, Cornyn said such measures might go too far. “Your testimony has raised serious concerns for my constituents given President Obama’s track-record of acting beyond the scope of his legal authority and your hostility to the individual right to self-defense under the Second Amendment.”

The senator was not alone in his disagreement.

Catherine Mortensen, a National Rifle Association spokesperson, said, “NRA is opposed to government mandates of expensive, unreliable features that could render the firearm inoperable at a critical moment when it is needed.”

Cornyn also asked if Holder could assure that DOJ “will not issue regulations requiring law-abiding citizens to equip their firearms with fingerprint-reading technology, or to link them to biometric bracelets?”

Cornyn’s other main concern centered on how much these devices would add to the cost of firearms, and whether it is “appropriate for law-abiding Americans to bear the cost of such technologies as a condition of exercising their fundamental constitutional rights under the Second Amendment?”